Scientology Assists and Objectives as Hypnosis

I occasionally run across people who believe assists and objectives, which both consist of a lot of repetitive touching of things and walking to things and looking at things over and over, sometimes for hours and hours totalling hundreds and hundreds of times doing the exact same thing, are harmless.

I beg to differ and have found more than a little bit of evidence to back me up.



Hypnotist  Volney Mathison (inventor of the E meter) explicitly described in his book Creative Image Therapy hypnosis being used over and over for hours as a covert way to mentally enslave someone.

Here is the quote:

At this point, nearing the end of this book, the writer reluctantly presents a negative warning. There is extant a pseudo-scientific system of something or other wherein the patient is required to create and duplicate arbitrary systems of mental images that are autocratically selected for him by the operator. Worse still, the patient is forced monotonously to perform interminably-duplicated trivial physical motions, such as touching a certain exact spot on the table, over and over and over, sometimes for hours.

Bluntly, this is a powerful and effective technique for covertly inducing hypnosis. By the duplicated command the subject is caused endlessly to duplicate mental image patterns wherein he is OBEYING the operator, explicitly, time after time after time. The subject is sooner or later reduced to such a zombie-like state that he will thereafter obey the operator's every other covert or indirect command. These covert and indirect commands are presented to the subject in the form of take-it-or-leave-it "suggestions"--to buy every book, take every expensive "course", attend every convention or conference staged by the operator. The victim at long last finds himself penniless, in debt, and much more ill and troubled than ever before.

The seizure of the intense attention of an intended victim by monotonously duplicated little acts is the technique of the rattlesnake as he fascinates a bird. The snake sways back and forth, holding the victim's gaze, causing it to look from side to side, keeping its attention captive by this duplicative technique of fascination. A "fatigue point" eventually is reached. The snake's prey is thereby immobilized, psychically and physically--and devoured.
From Lermanet.com

Next we have quotes from Ron Hubbard, SHSBC is the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lectures followed by the lecture number in the series and date of the lecture. PDC is the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures, given in 1952.

SHSBC-209 – 18.9.62

If you want to make some pc feel like he’s being hypnotized when he isn’t, set up two bottles in front of him and tell him to look at the left one, and then tell him to look at the right one, and then tell him to look at the left one, and tell him to look at the right one, and tell him to look at the left one, and tell him to look at the right one, and tell him to look at the left one, and all of the sudden he’ll get some weird feeling of becoming hypnotized.

SHSBC-330 – 29.8.63

... then tell them what their opinion is and they just sit there… They're – of course, they're in a hypnotic trance to their own opinion, so anything you say must be their opinion, see?

SHSBC-402

Of course, we go on a tradition "if you learn anything about man that will help him,

you help him with it." ...

"If you learn anything about man that you can manipulate him 

You're going to manipulate men, 

you've got to change their definitions

and change their goals

and enslave them and do this and do that. 

SHSBC-447

Now, brainwashing simply is the trick of mixing up certainties. 

All you have to do if you want to know and develop the entire field

of brainwashing as developed by Pavlov,

is simply to make somebody ..... into a confused or hypnotic state in which he can believe anything.

Dec 1952 Philadelphia Doctorate Course

There’s nothing every very weird about hypnotism.

It is the easiest thing in the world. ..

"All right, now you stare at the candle, stare at the candle.

Now uh… you know that concentration of that sort can make you for… sort of sleepy and so on.You stare at the candle until you feel that.“

And he’ll say, "All right.“ See he’s agreed that concentration on that can make him sleep.

All right, … let’s look at this candle a little… a little closer and

now let’s feel… let’s feel the… the… the body becoming more and more relaxed. And, he agrees to feel that the body is becoming more and more relaxed.

That’s all there is to that. He… he just agrees little by little,

the next thing you know the hypnotist says, „

Now your eyes will close.“ And his eyes go bonk. Of course, he agreed to that.

Now, the hypnotist says, "

Now your right hand will rise.“ And with some slight amazement, this fellow watches his right hand come up.
And he says, „Wooo, I’m hypnotized.“ So he just gives it up then,

and the hypnotist now says, "

Now you see that kangaroo on your right knee?“

"Yes.“ He sees the kangaroo on his right knee.

Now take it on your right knee.

“Now let’s see it jump over to the left knee.

Now you got that? All right,

now let’s put… let’s put a… uh… a bonnet on this kangaroo. Got the bonnet on it?

Now have the kangaroo sing a song

.“ And the hypnotized person is very happy to sit there and watch this.

PDC-05 pg 7 SCALES OF HANDLING 2.12.52

Well, that’s… that’s very interesting because we have hypnotism which can be demonstrated as a phenomenon,

and we show that the greater and greater agreement,

all you do to hypnotize somebody is just make him agree… agree… agree 

and after that he’ll see anything.

He’ll do anything,

he’ll see anything.

He agrees, agrees, agrees.

RON THE HYPNOTIST

Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1

"All processes are based upon the original observation

that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis

and removed at will any obsession or aberration,

compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“ 

Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;

sometimes it worked,

sometimes it didn’t work.

It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.

Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.

Well, I had a high certainty already –

I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…

 Philadelphia Doctorate Course  lecture tape numbered 39 from 1952 - 1953 known as the games maker tape or lecture

Now the caste system  of game  consist of  this: The Maker of Games, he has no rules, he runs by no rules.

 The player of the games,  rules known but he obeys them. And the assistant players merely obey the players. And the  pieces obey rules as dictated by players, but they don’t know the rules.

 And then, what  do you know. There’s broken pieces, and they aren’t even in the game, but they’re still in  the game.

And they’re in a terrible maybe: "Am  I in the game or am  I not in the game?“  Now, "How to make a piece. This is how to  make a piece: First, deny there is a game. Second, hide the rules from  them. Three, give  them  all penalties and no wins. Four, remove all goals“ –

 all goals. "Enforce them… their playing. Inhibit their enjoying. Make them  look like but forbid their being like players“

 – look like God but uh… you can’t be God.

"To make a piece continue to be a piece, permit it to associate only with pieces and deny the existence of players.“

 Never let the pieces find out that there are players.  Now out of these you’re going to get games.

 Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds  up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process. End quote

I obviously have written a tremendous amount more on hypnosis and Ron Hubbard's efforts to control people and exactly what it is and how it works in Scientology.

The posts Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, Basic Introduction to Hypnosis in Scientology, The Critical Factor, The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 Control Via Contradiction, Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants, Why Hubbard Never Claimed OT Feats And The Rock Bottom Basis Of Scientology, Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology, Hypnotism: Science Or Pseudoscience ? Not So fast, A Psychiatric View With Comments On The Admissions By Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1947), Scientology Was Ron Hubbard's Private Game at  Mockingbird's Nest all have further information on this topic. 

Confirmation Bias - Can Versus Must

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In the book The Righteous Mind author Jonathan Haidt outlined the essential experience of confirmation bias. He described how he has studied confirmation bias in people for many years (He has a PhD in psychology) and didn't really grasp it fully until his wife told him she has asked him to not put dishes in a certain place and he answered her then realized he had made an excuse that required combining bits and pieces from different events to create an exaggerated version of reality to justify his excuse.

Haidt described talking to his young son and realizing that if his son wants something he asks CAN it be done ? And tries to find any way possible that something CAN be how he wants it to be.

If he finds something he doesn't want he asks MUST it be this way ? Meaning is it absolutely necessary and unavoidable ?

We all tend to do this. If something fits what we want and is in agreement with our chosen behavior, thoughts and emotions we are eager to find and accept it and present a very low bar for considering information as correct and valid.

If something contradicts what we want and is in conflict with our chosen behavior, thoughts and emotions we are uncomfortable with it, it triggers cognitive dissonance and we become guarded and defensive and treat the disconfirming evidence as a threat and seek to negate, minimize or refute it as strongly and quickly as possible. It is treated as if it must be false and great efforts are made to find any way it could be wrong.

I am going to use a few simple examples to highlight this. In Scientology Scientologists are told Scientology is huge and expanding in the world. Outside of Scientology most critics (like myself) claim Scientology is dwindling and that it has perhaps twenty thousand members or less. We claim that the ideal orgs are almost all nearly empty with just a few dozen staff and a similar number of public Scientologists and that only Flag, the L.A. area and a very few orgs exceed this diminutive size.

We claim the ideal orgs are really a con to prop up Scientology and fool people about Scientology.

Okay, now if I was still a Scientologist eager to believe that Scientology is doing great I would probably do something like this - I would consider the claims by David Miscavige that orgs are booming. I would look at the dozens and dozens of ideal orgs being constructed. I would look at all the money being raised by the IAS. I would look at the Super Bowl commercials and other advertisements Scientology is buying and the Scientology television channel and see these efforts at costing millions of dollars.

If I was a Scientologist I would consider all the claims above as rock solid evidence that Scientology CAN be doing great and expanding as claimed, feel great about believing this and feel there is no reason to listen to any claims that Scientology is declining or small or that orgs are empty. I would see the above as far more than enough to settle the issue and not even look at the evidence or arguments for the other side, and I would be WRONG.

See, with just three or four BELIEVED claims to support an argument I - and probably most people - consider my (our)  desired argument supported and fully settled.

Those claims themselves were not thoroughly investigated because they CAN support my preference for reality.  So on a very weak foundation a faulty structure is built.

Here is another example. A harder example. Some people claim study technology is beneficial or harmless. Okay.

I have claimed it is harmful, was always meant to be harmful and constructed by Ron Hubbard to covertly enslave people.

Now, I have run into people who were supervisors in Scientology who find this incomprehensible.

They may not even still be Scientologists at all. They simply say "there is evidence Hubbard plagiarized study technology, so it might have been good."

 I will quote something  Chris Shelton wrote:

"Now there’s one more aspect to this I want to cover. L. Ron Hubbard credits himself as the sole source of every important discovery and technique of Dianetics and Scientology. Yet, the truth is actually quite different from that. Hubbard was a pathological liar when it came to the events of his own life and his accomplishments. Despite his grandiose claims of having succeeded in every endeavor he set his mind to, he actually flunked out of college, was a sub-standard naval officer who never saw a single day of actual combat during World War II and therefore lied about being crippled and blinded by enemy fire, and he even lied to his own wives, marrying two different women at the same time who didn’t even know of each other’s existence for almost a year. It should be no surprise that a man of such low character would blatantly steal other people’s ideas and claim them as his own, and that is exactly what Hubbard did." Chris Shelton

After leaving the Church, former Scientologist Alan Walters wrote at length of Hubbard’s plagiarism and idea theft, explaining that almost all of the basic principles and techniques of Scientology came from people other than L. Ron Hubbard. One of these ideas, he claimed, was the principle ideas of Study Tech. He said:

“I and several other [Scientologists] had dinner with Chuck and Ava Berner at the Forrest Row Hotel, it was June 1964, the night before Chuck and Ava were to meet with LRH to go over this new discovery they made to do with study.

“We were all enthralled with what they had discovered.

“Imagine the shock we had when LRH told us in a the lecture that night that he had made a momentous discovery in the field of study.

“The data he gave was almost word for word with what the Berners had discussed with us the previous night.

“There was no mention of the Berners who were in the audience.”

Walters later wrote:

“I know they had discovered the misunderstood word concept and the indicators of them, also study and intention, how fixed ideas block study, the importance of familiarization and how misunderstoods causes separation from the subject.”

Over the years, Walters has been quoted in various sources about this, but no one has ever contacted Chuck or Ava Berner directly. So I took it upon myself to track them down. I discovered that Charles Berner had died in 2007 and that he and Ava had divorced many years earlier but had remained in communication. Ava was happy to discuss the events of 1964 with me and here is what she had to say:

[quotes from Ava Berner interview]

In looking all of this over, it’s clear that there is certainly nothing wrong with clearing up definitions of words in dictionaries or even making models or demonstrations of things that are not easy to grasp in just spoken words. What L. Ron Hubbard did was elevate the importance of this to a level of absurdity, claiming that his plagiarized and re-packaged ideas were the only thing of any importance in all of education and learning. He so convinced his followers of this that they started an international organization to espouse and disseminate Study Tech to teachers and educators around the world. Tom Cruise even did a presentation on this to the Department of Education back in the mid-2000s. Fortunately, real educators can see that while there’s nothing wrong with the fundamental ideas, there is a lot more to the difficulties that students have with learning than just the definitions of words. End Quote

From The Basics of Scientology Study Tech

July 27, 2017

So, someone could say words and definitions SHOULD be learned and if a couple of teachers developed study technology independently of Scientology then it is just a benign creation and if they were a student in Scientology or especially a supervisor they can add that Scientology has made students BRIGHT in their experience over and over.

If someone is more comfortable with the claim study technology is beneficial or at least that it is not an attempt at covertly mentally enslaving people they can simply say "Hubbard plagiarized the ideas and I don't think learning words is bad and that I cannot believe that study can be persuasion. " And simply NOT even look at the huge amount of information and evidence I have presented in several blog posts such as Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, Basic Introduction to Hypnosis in Scientology, The Critical Factor, The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 Control Via Contradiction, Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants, Why Hubbard Never Claimed OT Feats And The Rock Bottom Basis Of Scientology, Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology, Hypnotism: Science Or Pseudoscience ? Not So fast, A Psychiatric View With Comments On The Admissions By Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1947), Scientology Was Ron Hubbard's Private Game.

There is also the fact Hubbard reportedly ALTERED the ideas and methods he took from those two teachers to end up with a product SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT from the original ideas they presented. There is also the fact that Hubbard had combined methods from different sources to create his own hybrid that he presented as his original creation. He read and recommended the book Hypnotism Comes of Age. In Hypnotism Comes of Age the method of combining hypnosis and psychoanalysis to create hypnoanalysis is described in detail. 

Hubbard combined Freudian abreactive therapy and hypnosis to create Dianetics but put tremendous efforts in denying the hypnotic origins and nature of Dianetics and later Scientology auditing and made great efforts to assure people that auditing doesn't hypnotize people but occasionally let slip the fact that auditing does indeed hypnotize people. Remember Hubbard gave thousands of lectures and on many occasions used various drugs and alcohol to get through the day, so occasionally letting the cat out of the bag despite his best efforts to lie is understandable.

I imagine I would occasionally let some secrets out too if I was smashed out of my mind and gave lectures thousands of times that were taped and had to remember hundreds of lies and kept piling on tons of new ones. I can't remember everything I say and while I am no saint I am fairly confident I have told several thousand fewer lies than Ron Hubbard. To say nothing about my far greater sobriety.

I have several examples of these contradictory statements on hypnosis by Hubbard and Jon Atack have perhaps the best outline of these in his essential article Never Believe A Hypnotist and Arnie Lerma has more evidence compiled at Lermanet.com.

You can also find messages in online groups about the hypnotic nature of Scientology indoctrination and auditing. 

Now, the point of all this is not that everyone should have identical beliefs to me. Not by far. The point is to TRY to objectively evaluate something a person should attempt to hold the evidence for and against their beliefs to the same standards AND they should weed out the BEST arguments both FOR and AGAINST their beliefs. Little tricks like finding one flaw or weak claim in a pile and dismissing all of them or finding one or two or even a few claims that support your beliefs then not examining the other side or deciding that the people making claims you disagree with lack the credibility to be listened to or that the people who have claims that you support have expertise and authority that supports their claims are ALL shortcuts to not examine disconfirming evidence and to blindly accept confirming evidence without examination and evaluation.

I think that serious students of psychology can learn more regarding this from the books A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger, Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow, Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman and most of all On Liberty by John Stuart Mill.

I will close with something from John Stuart Mill:

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” 
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.” 
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct.”John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, published in 1859